Goods of relatively small size are typically transported using wheeled dollies, which are usually platforms, which are mounted on wheels or castors. The goods are stored in containers that are prismatic and whose shape fits into the receptive platform. Upon transportation or temporary storage, the boxlike containers are stacked onto a dolly whose wheels enable easy handling by hand. The shape and size of the dollies are usually standardized to conform advantageously to industrial container models.
While the dollies may be moved about by hand, there is also a need to transport a plurality of dollies at once. Such need would occur e.g. when loading or unloading a trailer or a lorry. If a trailer is loaded dolly by dolly, the long duration of the operation consumes valuable docking time not to mention inflicted gratuitous vehicle idle time. Also, when transported individually, the dollies require thorough and tedious trussing up to prevent unintended movement within the load space. To tackle these disadvantages, adaptor pallets have been developed to aggregate a plurality of dollies carrying piles of containers. These adaptor pallets are usually rather flat and include a deck that has an upper support surface to accommodate a plurality of wheeled dollies, gouges to guide the dolly wheels, means for supporting the deck a certain distance above ground, receptive slots to receive the lifting forks of a forklift, an inclined surface to act as a ramp onto the deck and means for securing the dollies into the adaptor pallet. Such pallets have been extensively described in publication GB2416527.
However, the current adaptor pallets have considerable disadvantages. A major disadvantage is that adaptor pallets on the market are burdensome, tardy and not especially ergonomic to operate. For example, the construction presented in publication GB2416527 introduces a locking mechanism requiring that the operator swivels two ramp members in order to ensure that the dollies are sufficiently stationary during transport.
There are also other types of locking mechanisms. The most progressive ones utilize locking members which, rather than preventing the movement of the wheels, grab hold to the body of the dolly thus preventing its movement relative to the pallet. Until now they too have been inconvenient to operate due to the shortcomings of their locking mechanisms that will not enable effortless loading sequences. The problem in these types of locking mechanisms can be tracked down to the locking members, which may not be deactivated properly so that the dollies could be loaded on to the pallet. Even with the most favourable adaptor pallets, the operator must release the dolly from each of the previous locking positions when propelling the dolly to its farthermost locking position. This is obviously a considerable disadvantage that results in wasted work effort and inconvenience. The discomfort of the operator may be further elevated by locking mechanisms that are difficult to negotiate combined with the load of the heavy dolly. In addition, previous pallet models were unsuitable to be stored stacked on top of each other when empty due to the shortcomings of their locking mechanisms, which would occasionally break from the weight of the other pallets.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved product to tackle at least some aforementioned disadvantages by introducing an evolved adapter pallet construction.